Marullus (prefect of Judea)

Marullus was 37-41 AD prefect of Rome in Judea.

Marullus was appointed by Emperor Caligula as the successor of Marcellus Prefect of Judea. The first years of his term apparently passed quietly, Flavius ​​Josephus reports only about an incident around the year 40 non- Jewish inhabitants had in honor of Caligula an altar in Jerusalem built, which led to outrage from the Jewish side, as the religious Jews thought this was blasphemy. In the turmoil of the altar was destroyed. Caligula was furious when he heard of the incident, and ordered to set up in the Temple in Jerusalem for punishment an image of Zeus, which had the features of Caligula. Caligula sent this command to the governor of the Roman province of Syria, Publius Petronius. Marullus had to implement this measure, and looked an increasingly escalating public anger against. The protest of the Jewish population was so massive that Marullus could provide for peace with difficulty. To defuse the hardly solvable translucent situation, Petronius even tried it, undo the command of Caligula. When he found out, he called Petronius on suicide and threatened him with retaliation otherwise. To this end, it did not come as Caligula died 41 AD.

Emperor Claudius was the successor of Caligula. He set Marullus and made ​​Judea a Klientelkönigtum under the reign of Herod Agrippa I as a Jewish king. After his death in 44 AD Judea was a Roman province but again and received a procurator governor.